Dynamic lead-and-follow

M.B., this one is for you. With thanks to Psyche who pointed them out to me. It's Martin Maldonado and Maurizio Ghella at a festival. Watching some of the other videos available on YouTube, I deduce that Martin is the shorter one.


I like performances where the couple, while not necessarily smiling, look as though they want to be dancing in general, and to be dancing with each other in particular. Which is the case here. I suppose that's how I perceive a good connection. Here the connection is extremely interesting because of the way they exchange the lead. It's as fluid and dynamic as the way some people switch from a close embrace to an open one and back again. Notice at 02:16 how the embrace passes through symmetry and lingers there for a while. More variations in this (lower quality) video.

Because they dance together exchanging lead and follow, and are near-equal in size, mass, and shape, you can see how the dance changes depending on who leads and who follows, and how leading or following changes the way someone's personality comes out through the dance.